


A Lesson in Trust

by divingforstones



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, On The Cusp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/pseuds/divingforstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"If the doctor finds it strange that all James’s memories of before and after are primarily about Robbie, she doesn’t say so. Not like it’s medically strange, anyway, Robbie thinks. It’s just James, isn’t it? They focus in on each other when stuff’s going on. Or sometimes when it’s not.  Just something that they do, really."</i>
</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lesson in Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Belatedly edited for grammar issues.
> 
> With many thanks to the very kind wendymr who not only let me know about a few issues but then proceeded to beta for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Sit down, Robbie.”

The hell he will. Innocent looks at him and grimaces slightly in acknowledgement. "I want to avert any ill-feeling, going forward.”

“Ill-feeling." Robbie is incredulous. “Ill-feeling. If you think I’m letting the little bastard work with me—or James—”

_"Robbie_.”

Robbie doesn’t care. “You didn't hear the sound when James’s head hit the floor,” he says. It had been a sickening crack. He feels ill again just thinking about it now.

“ _Sit down,_ Robbie.” Innocent sounds a bit different this time.

He'd ignore her again, but it suddenly sounds like an incredibly welcome idea. He drops into the chair and focuses very hard on the surface of her desk. A glass of water appears in his field of vision after a bit. It’s just deeply unfortunate that he doesn’t really trust his hand to pick it up.

“Robbie.” Innocent’s voice is surprisingly close. He raises his head to see her leaning back on the desk beside him. Her eyes are surprisingly sympathetic.

 “I’m not having it, ma’am.” Something still doesn't sound quite right with his own voice.

“You do know it was a complete accident.”

“You should sue that bloody Mr Motivator for negligence.”

 

_James, in the moment just before it happened, making the tiniest rearrangement of his politely tolerant facial expression, to communicate, solely to Robbie, his amused contempt for the whole “trust exercise”._

_Robbie, less in the limelight than James, risking a full grin of pure amusement._ Go on, then, lad. _James crossing his arms over his chest, closing his eyes, getting a sudden focused look of concentration on his face and falling backwards and that fucking idiot of a new young DC, not ready after all, and jumping aside so that—_

He gets the feeling that Innocent has been trying to get his attention.

“What?”

“We're not going to get very far with this at the moment, are we?”

Have to give her some credit for realising that. “It’s James you need to talk to anyway,“ he acknowledges. “Up to him, isn't it?”

“No.” Innocent looks down at him with her head on one side. “If you were the one who'd had the fall, I'd be talking to James. Trying to calm him down about DC Hadley. I have to tackle where the real problems are likely to be.”

He gives up on that one. Probably some kind of reverse psychology. James would likely understand what she’s on about.

Innocent eyes him. “Besides,” she admits, “I've had someone take James to be checked out properly. _Purely as a precaution,_ Robbie.”

“Where?”

“A & E. Best place for anyone when they might have a potential concussion. As I'm sure you know.”

He’s not in the mood. He gets up to leave without waiting for any sort of dismissal. Someone. What the hell does she mean she sent _someone_?

 

* * *

“All right, lad?”

James looks disproportionately pleased to see him.

Robbie has already dispatched the young DC, who was cooling her heels outside the room, back to the station. He had calmed down a bit on the drive over, so had managed to thank her for bringing his partner in and hanging around. But he still doesn't know what the hell Innocent thought she was playing at, sending him to her office and then obviously sending James off without letting him know.

He frowns now, remembering. “My office, Robbie. Now, ” she'd said briefly. “Go in and sit down. Take a moment. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Sir?”

Robbie shakes himself out of it. Keeps woolgathering today. “It’s okay. Just – something with Herself. Doesn't matter. Sorry I got delayed.”

 

* * *

“What do you remember right before the fall?” The doctor has finished with her checks for now, and has moved on to questioning  James.

“I remember him,” James indicates Robbie with a nod of his head and obviously immediately regrets the movement. “…making faces at me...” he finishes, not quite steadily.

Robbie winces sympathetically.

“And after?”

“He was really furious," says James feelingly. “Told them all to stop bloody gawping and just get bloody lost. The whole room scarpered quite quickly.”

They had seemed to evaporate fairly fast. Someone had pulled the hapless DC Hadley, still stammering his apologies, out of the door. Facilitator must’ve made himself bloody scarce. Robbie hadn't paid that much heed to them all at the time. Forgetting proper procedure, he’d ordered someone to get Laura and he’d just stayed with James, pretty much in silence— _hush lad, I know, wait now—_ until she appeared at his side, blessedly quickly.

“Nothing about the fall itself?”

“I remember falling, I think.” James frowns “—his hands—didn't come. And then a rotten pain spreading up from the back of my head.”

"Anything else?"

“And then his face above me looking...” James’s voice dies away.

God only knows how he had looked, Robbie realises uncomfortably. James had fallen straight back, following instructions, and not making any attempt to save himself. He'd been so still on the floor, in the seconds after it happened, that for a long unending moment Robbie had almost thought—

“Oh, and before that bit, Gurdip—his face first, but.” James looks confused “...and then he sort of disappeared sideways?”

 _Oh, bugger_. Robbie had forgotten that bit himself. Gurdip had been kneeling beside James by the time Robbie had succeeded in making his legs take him across the room. Robbie has a horrible feeling– yes, he did.

“I may’ve shoved him aside,” he says gruffly now, and James’s face clears, as he obviously makes sense of that strange vision of Gurdip disappearing sideways. “Just a bit, like.”

Come to think of it, Gurdip had landed up on the floor too, although in much less dramatic fashion than James. Must have been okay, though, because there had been a brief comforting hand gripping Robbie’s upper arm before Gurdip, too, departed. Apology definitely owed there.

If the doctor finds it strange that all of James’s memories of before and after are primarily about Robbie, she doesn’t say so. Not like it’s medically strange, anyway, Robbie thinks. It’s just James, isn’t it? They focus in on each other when stuff’s going on. Or sometimes when it’s not. Just something that they do, really.

“And you summoned your resident medic, who then checked him out?” The doctor has moved on to questioning him now, he realises belatedly.

“Not exactly.” Robbie sees the warning flash in James’s eyes— _Don’t, sir_  —just a second too late. “Pathologist.”

“You really _did_ overreact,” jokes the doctor.

Robbie fixes his best interrogation-room impassive glare on his face, and then turns his head slowly towards her to ensure that she gets the full benefit.

“That’s the second room you’ve cleared today, sir,” says James, highly impressed, a moment later.

 

Okay, so sending for Laura might not have been the most logical step, medically speaking, but it had seemed like the natural thing to do at the time. And she’d not seen anything wrong with it, Robbie is pretty sure. She’d want to know anyway if James was hurt, wouldn't she?

It had been better having her there, kneeling down and bending over James, asking questions in a low voice. _Where’s it hurt, James, just the head?_ Shouldn't actually be that reassuring when he’s used to seeing her assume that position with corpses at a murder scene, but there you go. Must've been the way that her eyes were full of concern.

And when the police doctor, running a review clinic that morning downstairs, had appeared, Laura had pulled Robbie aside. _Come on, let him have a bit of space to check him out. He’ll be all right, you know_. And then a long pause. _You okay, Robbie?_

 

* * *

There's the unmistakable sound of a slight scuffle in the corridor now, and then a hissing voice, “I’ll swap for your next bank holiday shift.”

“Why, what’s so bad about him? He’s a police officer, isn’t he? It’s not a complicated case?”

“It’s not the patient—it’s the other one.”

“What? Oh, look—okay. But only because I’m curious.”

Footsteps approach.  James is having such difficulty suppressing his laughter that he is starting to choke slightly and his colour is raised. It’s no wonder that his new doctor gives him a concerned look and immediately starts taking his blood pressure. Robbie isn't sure where to look. He would’ve thought the medical profession were made of sterner stuff. Only gave her a bit of a look. Who’s overreacting now?

 

* * *

“You be all right here for a bit, James? Suppose I’d better give Innocent a ring. Keep her up to date.” 

Robbie has been thinking. Earlier, when Innocent had finally arrived in the seminar room, Laura’s restraining hand on his arm had proved completely ineffective. He had let the Chief Superintendent know precisely what he thought of her team-building seminars, her taste in facilitators, the stupidity of her new recruits and the hardness of the floors in her police station. He had just been casting about for fresh targets for his fury when she had finally moved her assessing gaze from James, to take in Robbie, and that was the point at which he’d been sent to sit in her office.

He wouldn't have gone either, but James, though very pale, had been helped into a sitting position by then, and there had been a slight but definite chuckle at one of the more colourful epithets in Robbie’s little speech.

Now that James is lying back on a hospital bed, but looking comfortable enough and a bit more like himself, Robbie suddenly has time to wonder quite how he had escaped any form of rebuke whatsoever. Innocent must have been fairly worried about James, is what he concludes. So seems only fair to keep her posted now. And text Laura.

If James looks slightly bereft that he's leaving, that’s most likely because he'll be dying to follow Robbie outside and have a smoke. They've spent more hours on the job than Robbie can remember, hanging around outside A&E together. James's sleeve is still rolled up from the blood pressure cuff. Robbie gives a consoling gentle rub to his bare forearm before he rises. _Warm._

“I’ll see if they'll let me bring you back a proper cup of tea, none of that vending machine muck.”

They've spent a lot of time discussing the evils of that too.

 

* * *

 “Think they’re probably just going to keep him overnight, ma’am. As a precaution.” His echo of her earlier words prompts an unwanted memory of walking out of her office this morning.

“Probably to be expected, Robbie.”

“Ma’am?” He’s not really sure how to continue. The silence on the other end of the phone makes him picture her with her eyebrows raised at him though, waiting, so he gives it a go. “May have been a bit annoyed earlier.”

In reply, there is a pause, and then a curious sound at the other end of the line which reminds him of nothing so much as when James was trying to hide the sounds of his amusement from the two young arguing doctors.

Robbie shakes his head as he heads back inside.

“Master of the understatement, aren't we, Inspector?” was all she had said in the end. “My regards to James.”

Herself is just not herself today at all.

 

* * *

Their concerted effort at protest is not enough to prevent James from being transferred upstairs and admitted overnight. Not that Robbie privately thinks that’s a bad idea.

But he’d had to back James up strongly when he'd said so promptly, “I can stay with him,” after he was told he couldn't be alone tonight. He hadn't missed that James had sent a slightly tentative glance towards him a moment after he’d said that, as if to check that his welcome really was assured and his trust that Robbie would be willing wasn't misplaced.

Makes his heart hurt sometimes, the lad does.

Somehow during the course of a long wandering conversation about nothing much he can remember now, Robbie has gone from pacing the small room to dropping down on the side of the bed, and now he's landed up kicking off his shoes and reclining back beside James on the raised pillows.

And it must be the narrow bed because they've landed up sitting pretty much as they do on Robbie’s couch—side to side. Side against side, pretty much. Enough room for arms and legs to move with their gestures but only if they brush against each other and overlap a bit. They both tend to gesture a lot when they sit like this, but this evening James is being much more conservative than usual with the movement of his long limbs, and Robbie is being as gentle with his own movements as he can figure how to be.

Wouldn't do to jar the lad and send any more pain signals shooting up to that head of his.

Despite the lateness of the hour, no-one on the ward has suggested that Robbie leave. _Your reputation precedes you, sir,_ James had whispered. Daft sod. The odd glare and the odd question about exactly how long it took to scare up a couple of stronger painkillers, once James had been cleared to take them. No need for him to be in pain a moment longer than necessary, was there?

They're being left alone now, anyway. As the evening lengthens, as the sounds in the corridor grow less frequent, so too do the checks on James. Robbie knows that’s a good sign. He's prised open the window so they can hear the summer rain. It’s soothing.

It has been the strangest day. He feels like he’s been put through the wringer – all that furious energy and now all this blessed peace. He feels more dazed than James looks.

“How’d you do that anyway? That trust thing.” Robbie simply can't imagine falling back and trusting that a colleague’s arms will come out to break your fall. Even before today.

“The exercise?”

“Yeah. Have you done that before? In the seminary?”

James goes to shake his head and Robbie hurriedly puts a hand up to his cheek to stop him. James gives a huge sigh, but it doesn't sound like he’s in pain. It sounds to Robbie more like content. So Robbie leaves his hand to linger there a moment, the way it seems to want to.

After the day that’s been in it, it’s unbelievably reassuring to feel the warmth of his sergeant’s skin under the palm of his hand, and then the thrumming of a steady pulse when he slides his fingers slowly down onto James’s neck. James seems to settle into his touch.

So when he eventually slides his hand down, it’s only as far as James’s still-bare forearm. This time when he lets his hand linger, he lets two fingers come to rest on the pulse point in James’s wrist. And James gives another, deeper, sigh and relaxes beside him just that little bit more again.

Still warm. Still here. Still James. It’s a rhythm so soothing that it’s gradually obliterating the worst memories of the day from the forefront of Robbie’s mind. He could swear the steady thrumming is overwhelming his own internal rhythms, taking them over, calming them down, to fall into sync with James’s.

The question is still needling at him though.

“I mean, how d’you bring yourself to do that, lad, just throw yourself backwards like that and blindly trust that the person there will break your fall?”

“Oh,” says James, understanding. “That. That bit was easy. Just pretended he was you.”


End file.
